


Priestess

by sceawere



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 17:54:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16623680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sceawere/pseuds/sceawere
Summary: Tommy may not agree with the Church, but sometimes he just needs confession. Sometimes he needs absolution, sometimes he needs hope, sometimes he just needs someone to listen. And so he has her, and the shadows, and the silence.-You weren’t sure what you were to Tommy. You meant the comment about acting as his confessor. You fulfilled that role. You weren’t the whore your mother had feared you were. But you acted as an emotional equivalent, it seemed.You weren’t his friend. Weren’t his mistress. Weren’t his employee. You didn’t belong to the family. You lay distinctly out of it, by design. You were detached from everything Tommy Shelby.And yet, again and again, he turned up at your door. And you stepped aside and let him enter. Let him cry, and rant, and argue with you for hours.“I’ll look after you” he promised, and you huffed.“I’d like to argue that no, I will look after myself, thank you very much. But honestly, the factory pay is shit and I’d make a really bad whore” you sighed, and he chuckled.“You make a good priest” he said “Pity they won’t have you”.





	Priestess

Tommy Shelby had turned up at your mother’s wake.

He hadn’t announced his arrival, though the sudden hush and flutter as people moved out of his way had provided an entrance worthy of the man himself. You hadn’t invited him either. Hadn’t even mentioned it to him. He hadn’t come to see you even, not since it had happened.

He’d taken his hat off and stood respectfully off to the side. Bothering no-one. Giving nothing. The only time he spoke was to refuse the cup of tea your cousin politely offered him.

He’d stayed in his spot, right up until, and while everyone else filed out. The two of you stood in silence as the hush fell over the room, and then the shadows as night set in.

And then finally, you allowed yourself to devolve into sobs, and he walked over, and held you. Until it was over. Until you moved to your opposite corners again, like boxers in a ring. You did this with each other. Drew together and apart. A dance.

He lit a smoke, and you slipped off your shoes. They clanked as you threw them against the wall, causing the photo of your fuckhead of a step dad to clatter to the floor. That gave you your first smile of the night. The glass crinkled over the image of him, in his uniform. He was gone too. And now mother was gone, you could remove the last vestiges of him from your life.

The day had taken a lot out of you, and you slumped into the slab of painted wood that formed a window seat. The netting glazed pattern through the light as Tommy lit a fire, shoved a cigarette into the burgeoning flames, and passed it to you on his way back to the chair.

“The service was lovely” he commented, and you frowned.

“You were at the church?” your voice was gritty from disuse.

“I was at the church” he confirmed, fussing with the lay of his cap over his knee.

“Didn’t see you” you mumbled, but he stayed silent. “Thought you didn’t do churches”

“No problem with the churches. It’s the people inside them that grate me” he explained, and you laughed.

“You can scoff at Polly all you want.“ You paused in your speech, taking a deep drag before leaning to pass the cigarette back to him. You settled back before continuing “-but just ‘cos you don’t go to Church doesn’t mean you don’t seek out the same thing she does. I’m your priest, Tommy”

He leaned back in the chair, folding the slip of paper and ash between his fingers.

“Is that what you are? How’d you figure that, then?” he asked, voice descending into his breath as he took his own drag.

You smiled, rolling your neck where it rested on the wall to peer over at him. He still had his coat on, hat laid at his knee.

“Well you come to me when you’re feeling troubled. I hear your sin. your strife. I give you your hope, and your absolution. And then you leave, and we tell no-one of what was spoken” you explained.

You turned out of the window seat, bare stockinged feet padding over to perch on his free knee. He clamped the cigarette between his lips, adjusting the cap on his leg, and cupped your waist.

“Maybe if you absolved me a little less, I wouldn’t have to keep coming back, eh? Maybe if you told someone all the rotten things I do, I wouldn’t be able to keep doing them” he pointed up to you, pinching the cigarette again, frowning as you blew a puff of air so the smoke he released blew away from your face.

“If you need someone to tell you how worthless and bad you are, I think Maggie on Ford Street does that now. Just…what I’ve heard in certain circles” you smirked down at his rolling eyes, giggling when it dissolved into a smirk of his own.

“If that’s what I was looking for, I wouldn’t bother leaving the house” he replied, only half joking. Your smile fell just a tad, the sadness in his eyes as he took another deep drag.

“She worried you were corrupting me you know. The way you kept turning up here. Straight out asked me if I was whoring one day. ‘I’m not-sweetheart, listen. I’d rather you just asked me for the money, if you were shy of it’” you mimicked her voice, her mannerisms, descending into laughter as you recalled.

“She…somehow the truth seemed harder to explain. Tommy Shelby comes to me for moral guidance and emotional support. Little old me, priestess to the biggest gangster in the city. Imagine what she’d say to that!” You swallowed it down, throat aching as the grief waved over you again. The reminder that you’d never hear her voice again.

“Well, then she just thought you were sweet on me. You couldn’t possibly be here for my opinions, no, I must be a good old gangster’s girl, being led astray” you mocked, no energy in your tone as you fought to swallow down the tears.

“She was a good woman, your mother. She looked out for you” Tommy comforted, flicking the stub into the dying embers of the fireplace.

“She held me too close” you whispered, mostly to yourself, and let your eyes wander over his shoulder to the knitting she’d left in the box by the fire. Half finished, and to remain so.

He reached his now free hand to pull you into him, and you lay down, folding into his body as you sat across his lap. You tucked your head into the crook of his neck, forehead creasing as you eyed the coffin lying in state at the opposite end of the living room. It was his turn to guide and confirm.

“What do I do now, Tom?” you asked, voice more fragile than you’d allowed him to hear before.

You’d seen Tommy Shelby cry. You could never tell anybody. You never would. But you held it. You’d seen Tommy Shelby cry, and not many had. You’d held him when the nightmares gripped too tight. Listened to him rant when a decision went sideways. Made him laugh when he was blind to any happiness.

You weren’t sure what you were to Tommy. You meant the comment about acting as his confessor. You fulfilled that role. You weren’t the whore your mother had feared you were. But you acted as an emotional equivalent, it seemed.

You weren’t his friend. Weren’t his mistress. Weren’t his employee. You didn’t belong to the family. You lay distinctly out of it, by design. You were detached from everything Tommy Shelby. And yet, again and again, he turned up at your door. And you stepped aside and let him enter. Let him cry, and rant, and argue with you for hours.

“I’ll look after you” he promised, and you huffed.

“I’d like to argue that _no, I will look after myself, thank you very much_. But honestly, the factory pay is shit and I’d make a really bad whore” you sighed, and he chuckled.

“You make a good priest” he said “Pity they won’t have you”

“I could always be a nun” you replied, and he scoffed. You slapped at his chest, snuggling into him all the more. “Eh, behave yourself”

You’d spent the first day in the house alone. You’d spent the days that came after sectioned off from everyone, even as you were surrounded. Barely speaking, flinching from the comforting words, the soothing hands on shoulders. How did Tommy live like this? As an island, you wondered. But then, you supposed that’s why he came to you. You were the hidden place he didn’t have to hide.

“She held me too close” you whispered, eyeing the coffin once more “She held me too close, because I was the only thing she had left, and I let her. I shouldn’t have let her”

“I’ll look after you” he repeated, more insistent.

“Not how I need. You can’t” you replied, letting the silence fall between you once more.

Tommy had lit and finished another smoke before another word was spoken. The streetlights had about blown out. It must have been passed midnight, and yet neither of you moved.

“I need tea” you finally decided, rolling your heavy limbs off of him.

“Got any biscuits?” he asked as you left the room without replying.

He followed you through at some point, as you were clinking and clacking cups and kettles around.

“My cousin’s enamoured with you, you know?” you asked. He pushed his shoulder into the doorframe.

“Who the fuck’s your cousin?”

You hummed a single bar of laughter, reaching up to tap against a tin on the sideboard.

“Biscuits” you murmured, moving back to pour the steaming liquid out. Tommy pulled them down, tucking the lid under his arm as he picked about the selection. You waved your arm as you returned to his question “He offered you tea before. Short lad”

“I didn’t notice” he shook his head. You rolled your eyes.

“I thought you noticed everything and everyone” you replied as he bit into his choice.

“Only the important things” he used the remaining biscuit to motion with, emphasising his point.

“Am I an important thing, Mr Shelby?” you asked, pulling yourself up to perch onto the kitchen side.

“Oh yes” he insisted. You smiled, and then leant forward.

“Not an important ‘person’ – an important ‘thing’. Don’t you think it’s interesting that you- no, Thomas, listen. Because we’ve discussed that maybe the reason you have so much trouble with people, it’s that you’re a right cunt to them, we’ve discussed that, haven’t we?” you began, and he simply frowned, and dropped the biscuit tin unceremoniously against the counter.

“You just told me to stop absolving you!” you reminded him as he stalked back to the living room, tea in hand. You jumped down from the counter, palming your own warm cup, and made your own way down the hall. “You’re seriously going to seek out my dead mother for safety? She’s not going to protect you from your problems, Thomas! She’s dead!”.

 


End file.
